Mourn
by Valkyrie Shepherd
Summary: The queen has died. Choosing to tumble to her death rather than let the Fire Emblem fall into enemy hands. Chrom's small army is forced to flee. Sorrow reigns in he camp of the Prince, but he has put up a stoic mask. Until now. Roan, the mysterious tactician and his best friend, finds him hiding away from the others. Can she help her prince finally mourn his sister?


~~~~Playing through Fire Emblem Awakening again and thinking of how a certain prince might actually deal with his sister's death. In my game Roan (Robin) is his best friend, but they are not lovers. (Even if previous play-throughs they always struck me as just very close friends)

Anyway, taking a break from all DA:I all the time to write this little one-shot baby. Enjoy!~~~~~

Mourn

Roan hung her sword wearily in its place on the weapon's rack. The rain beat against the armory tent like a violent wave. She was not entirely certain that the tent wasn't going to blow away. It had been put up so hastily after all. The wind grappled the door flap open again and again and Roan wondered if she she should make a try for tying it down better. If only she wasn't so sore. Bone-weary was a better description if she was honest. Everyone in the camp was down for the count.

She rolled her shoulder, testing. She let out a light groan as the joint protested. She was covered in a thousand cuts and bruises and her sword arm ached relentlessly. While she was adept enough with magic she preferred to use a blade when she could. Her magic did allow her to see farther in battle than most, and to almost see a top-down view of the battlefield in her mind. Where others puzzled, unable to see beyond the nearest hill, she was able to mobilize troops with deadly efficiency.

She had much to think about tonight. In spite of their best efforts a queen had met her end before their eyes. Chrom had nearly found himself stuck full of arrows in the process, but he could not allow his sister to be cut down. Damn that man, she thought with a cluck of her tongue. And after it all the queen had allowed herself to fall, dying before the prince's eyes. Roan thought of her nightly game of chess with Virion. She knew her beau would be too weary tonight for a game, but she suspected that even exhausted he would thrash her again. He had told her once that she saw the game differently. That she tried to prevent the loss of pieces, even if it cost her the game. She was the same way on the battlefield. The loss of a single man was not worth it. And yet someone had died and she had been utterly unable to help.

She was about to turn and leave, her black hair falling over her eyes, hiding her pale face as she pondered her failure, when a sound caught her attention. Just a small noise, barely worth mention, but she turned just the same. She did not become a wold class tactician through inattention. Had some animal slunk into the tent to hide from the rain?

Even as Roan might have cursed the raging storm she knew it was keeping the perusing enemy off of their backs for a bit longer. True, her army would have to climb from the sludge the next day, but so would the foe, and they were not nearly as mobile and used to packing up and moving a camp with haste.

Roan picked her way around a large chest filled with daggers and peered into the darkness behind it. The only light in the tent came from a lonesome lantern hanging from one of the tent's overhead ribs and the lightning which shone through the flapping tent door. At fist her eyes roved over him without seeing, but her magic prickled, telling her to look again, "Chrom?"

The man was sitting on the ground, knees tucked up to his chest, head in his hands. His dark hair fell over his forehead, completely obscuring his features, but she knew it was him. She recognized his armor, and beside him on the soggy earth lay the Fire Emblem, like a forgotten toy a child has grown weary of.

At the sound of his name the prince raised his head slightly, his eyes becoming visible, a look of alarm filling them. "Roan! I...er...I was-" he stopped, beginning to rise, but his joints had obviously stiffened and he had to haul himself up using the chest of daggers. His trousers and cloak were soaked with rain water and they seemed to drag at him.

"Chrom? Are you alright? Are you hurt? Should I fetch your sister?"

"Gods! Don't bring Lissa. She won't know what to do. I'll only frighten her like this." he sat down heavily on the chest and wrung out the hem of his cloak.

"Like what?" Roan asked, gentling her voice as best she could. It was hoarse from shouting orders and from cold. "Why are you in here getting soaked?" She pulled her own robes clear as she joined him on the chest. They may have been the sign of her position as tactician of the Shepherds, but they were in her way much of the time. She often tied them back when fighting.

"Do you remember anything of your past yet?" Chrom looked up at her, his face drawn and pale. His shoulder was against hers. His trust was clear, almost palpable.

"No," Roan admitted, looking down at her hands, wondering how long a scar on her wrist had been there. "I try to remember sometimes, but all I get is a void. Maybe a feeling of sadness. Of failure. But that's all."

"No memory of your family then?" he asked, dark eyes searching the room, for what she wasn't certain.

"No. I wish more than anything that I had something. I must have had a mother and father, maybe brothers and sisters-" she stopped wincing when she saw the look on his face.

"My sister..." he said, his voice tight with restrained tears. "She-" he cleared his throat with an effort, "-she was twice the person I will ever be."

"Oh, Chrom," Roan wanted to tell him this was not true, but she wasn't certain how to do that without insulting the queen's memory.

"Lissa and I were always up to trouble, you know?" he rasped. "Emm was the eldest. The level headed one. I was always brash, always running towards trouble. So why did trouble find her instead?"

Roan hesitated, then reached across and took one of his hands. "Chrom," she scolded, "you're freezing. You're going to make yourself ill."

He shrugged. "It hardly matters now. Without my sister to lead the nation we'll fall. We needed her, Roan."

"The people still have you," she reminded him as she busied herself rubbing his icy hands between hers. "I can't think of anyone who loves them more."

"Huh," Chrom said, obviously skeptical. "I'm not that kind of prince. I'm the kind that sorts out bandits and needs his baby sister around to keep a level head on his shoulders."

"The kind who finds strange girls wandering around without anyone, takes them in and lets them lead?" she asked, blowing on his fingers to warm them.

"Exactly! Who does that?" he said, pulling his hands from her and jamming them under his armpits. "I mean, who are you anyway? We follow your orders all day and we have no idea who you are."

Roan sat back, a creeping dread falling over her like a poll. "I...I'm Roan. I'm your friend. We've been friends since you found me. Remember that time I saw that bandit readying to throw an ax at your head and I pulled you clear just in time. Or that time you walked in on me in the bath and I didn't even murder you for it?"

He looked at her fully this time, meeting her gaze. His expression was a bit distant as though he was not fully seeing her. Instinctively she reached up and brushed back his sodden hair from his brow. Blood, sweat, and rain mingled on her fingertips. She bit down on her lip. "Chrom, you're still bleeding. Your sister should really-"

"NO!" he snapped. Roan would have been worried someone might hear if not for the loud clap of thunder that masked much of his outburst. "No," he said, quieter. "Lissa is coping in her own way. Vaike is with her. He's seeing to her."

"And I'm seeing to you," Roan said, standing. She knew that Chrom kept a healthy distance from most of the women of the camp. He did not seem eager to pair off as most did. Even Roan had found herself a suitor in the form of the dignified and clever Virion. Her friend had no one in this moment, so she knew what she must do. She held out her hands to him and to her mild surprise he took them in his own. His hands were larger, calloused. The hands of a warrior, not the heir to the throne. She pushed aside such thoughts as she hauled him to his feet. "Brace yourself," she instructed, pulling up her hood before guiding her now sullen companion out of the armory tent and into the pouring rain.

The pair had to hold on to one another to keep from being pushed about by the vile winds. Not a soul could be seen out and about the camp. Far too sane, she knew. Unlike herself and her prince.

They were both soaked through when they reached Chrom's large tent. It was the biggest and the fanciest. He was the prince after all. His cot was draped with lavish coverings which made Roan raise her eyebrows jealously. There was a small metal firebox sitting at the foot of his bed. A round, coal-like stone sat inside. Roan knelt and ignited it with her magic before turning back to the prince. The stone glowed with a coppery shine and let off a surprising amount of warmth. "Alright, take off those wet things."

Chrom hesitated. She folded her arms over her chest and heard her own clothing squelch. She grimaced as fresh rivulets of icy water hove down her body. Suddenly she was struck in the face by something cloth. A wadded up tunic Chrom which had thrown at her. "You're soaked too," he pointed out.

The two turned their backs on each other and changed hurriedly. Though Chrom's spare tunic and leggings were a bit big, and far too lavish for her, Roan still felt much refreshed to be out of her drenched robes. She set these carefully beside the firebox to begin drying as best they could. Chrom looked a bit healthier in fresh garb. The simple attire of a man-at-arms. He moved to his cot and sat down, watching her uncertainly. "What now?" he asked.

"I have a look at that brow of yours," she said simply, sitting down as well. Every soldier kept a healing kit in their tent and she had grabbed his, setting it on her lap.

"It's alright, Roan," he said, dismissive. There was still a tightness to his voice she wasn't sure of. A pain he was hiding, but poorly. It compelled her to stay more strongly than a plea might have.

"Let me see," she instructed, turning his jaw with her fingertips. He didn't have the look of his siblings, and it wasn't just the hair. His was dark while theirs shone golden as a fresh dawn. His jaw was wider, his expression more stern. She wondered which parent he took after. She gently moved shaggy strands of his black mane back from his forehead to reveal and long and ugly gash. "That must have hurt," he commented. The bleeding has mostly stopped, though the wound was crusted with old blood. He had clearly born it since the battle that day, perhaps even since his sister's death. Why had he not had it magically seen to?

"Lissa would worry," he said, as though reading her mind. "I can't make her worry over me right now. Not right now," his hands rested on his legs and balled into fists and his shoulders tensed.

Roan found a bottle of herb water that was good for cleansing wounds and wetted a bit of bandage, raising it to her friend's brow to gently clean the gash. As she did words seemed to tumble from Chrom unbidden. As thought a tide had finally been set loose. "I saw her fall, Roan. I saw her and...oh gods when she hit the ground. The sound it made. The way her body bent and broke and all the blood-" he gagged suddenly and Roan held her hand clear as he leaned forward with a heave. Nothing came up but his body spasmed and she rubbed his back, soothing.

"Alright. It's alright. Easy now. Easy," she kept her voice pitched low. She had no idea where she had learned to comfort in this way. She could recall no mother ever saying such things to her. No father calming her tears.

Chrom sat back up, his eyes red-rimmed and his hand clasped to his chest. Tears were well and truly threatening now. Roan had not seen him cry. Not when the queen had fallen. Not when Chrom's army had been forced to flee. Not even when, after the battle, he had spoken to her of his dead sibling. Now the sobbing caught him at last. He fell onto his side on the cot, curling into a ball as retching, wracking sobs jerked themselves from him.

"Oh, Chrom," Roan set aside the bandage, both hands on her friend, "Shhhhh. It's alright. You're alright." She knew her words meant nothing. For him, in this moment, nothing would ever be alright again. She understood this with a steely certainty, though she had no idea how she knew. Perhaps a memory she did not know she possessed yet lingered in her gutted mind. She pushed his hair from his streaming eyes, petting it gently as each fresh sob shuddered through her friend. "Chrom, I'm right here. I'm not leaving you," she said, even as his fingers found her sleeve. The sleeve of his spare tunic which she wore, and gripped fiercely.

He wept for several such minutes, holding on to her. Finally he stilled. His body seemed to have fallen to weariness and could no longer even manage to make tears. He was silent, limp, barely blinking. Roan moved to arrange his limbs, no longer tight with the effort of weeping, so that he was laying more comfortably. She pulled a few of his fine coverings over him, fixing them neatly around his chin. He seemed to be awake, but stared at the tent ceiling as though she did not exist.

Roan shifted away to pick up the healing box. It had fallen from her lap when the man had begun to sob and now tinctures and poultices were scatted all about. She tidied them away deftly, then selected one poultice and returned to his bedside, sitting down beside him she pressed the poultice to his brow. He seemed to waken slightly then, his eyes regaining some focus. He watched her meekly, like a child. His voice, when he spoke, was so cracked and dry that she fetched him a drink of water before he might try to speak again. After he had drank he lay his head back against his pillow, watching her with a bit more focus. "Thank you, Roan," he said. His hand slid from beneath his blankets and took hers, loosely. There was no desperation as there had been before. Merely the simplest longing for contact.

"You are welcome, my friend." she said. Then, so quietly that even he could not hear, "you are welcome, my king."


End file.
